1 BUT I prescribed to myself this rule, not to come again to you with sorrow.
2 For if I make you sorry, who is he that maketh me glad, but he that is made sorrowful by me?
3 And I have written unto you for this very purpose, that I might not, when I come to you, have sorrow from those in whom I ought to rejoice, having confidence in you all, that my joy is the joy of you all.
4 For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears, not that ye should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly towards you.
5 Now if any person hath given cause for grief, he hath not grieved me [merely], but partly all of you; that I may add no farther burden.
6 Sufficient for such person is that chastisement which hath been inflicted by the majority of you.
7 Wherefore, on the contrary, ye rather ought to forgive and comfort him, lest such a one be swallowed up with excess of sorrow.
8 Wherefore I exhort you to confirm your love towards him.
9 For to this end also have I written, that I may know by this proof of you if ye are obedient in all things.
10 But to whomsoever ye forgive any thing, so do I; and if I forgive any thing, to whom I forgive, for your sakes I do it, in the person of Jesus Christ,
11 that no advantage be gained over us by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his devices.
12 But when I came to Troas to preach the Gospel of Christ, though a door was opened unto me by the Lord,
13 I had no test in my spirit on my not finding there Titus my brother: so taking my leave of them I went forth unto Macedonia.
14 But thanks be to God, who causeth us always to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.
15 For we are a sweet odour of Christ to God in those who are saved, and in those who perish.
16 To the one we are the odour of death unto death, to the other the odour of life unto life: and who is sufficient for these things?
17 For we are not as the many, adulterating the word of God; but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ.